LSLFBW: Chapter 54

Qi Bai saw two unfamiliar faces, one young and one old.

He sighed with relief but couldn’t help taking a look a few more times with some confusion. He had been in the Beast World for so long, but this was the first time he had come into contact with the beastmen outside the Black Mountain Tribe.

The two people looked very bad. They were only wearing animal skin skirts made of their own fur.

Their hands and feet were frozen blue, their lips were bloodless, their rough skin stuck to their bones and Qi Bai could count every rib on their bodies.

The beastmen usually turned into their own beast form when cold. They only changed into human form when close to death. The two people they saw now were obviously in such a situation.

Qi Bai’s eyes widened slightly. “Could this be…”

Lang Ze nodded to Qi Bai. “They are from the Horse Tribe.”

It had been more than a month since the last time people from the Horse Tribe were seen around the tribe.

Qi Bai had always thought that they wouldn’t hear any news from this ‘neighbor’ again this winter. He didn’t expect that they would appear again. It seemed that the situation of the Horse Tribe was more difficult than they had imagined.

At this time, Ma Ling, who was supposed to be out on patrol with the hunting team, ran down the Black Mountain. It seemed that he was the one who returned to the tribe in advance to report the news and let the sub-beastmen hide in the kiln in advance.

“The cave is tidied up. Follow me.”

Ma Ling’s cave was just below Shu Liin and Xiong Feng’s cave at the very edge of the second layer of the Black Mountain. It was also the furthest place from the kiln and the sheepfold.

Qi Bai walked into the cave and found out that what Ma Ling said about tidying up the cave wasn’t an exaggeration at all. In the cave of nearly 20 square meters, there was nothing in it except a hay mat and a stone pot.

Qi Bai reasonably suspected that the reason why Ma Ling left the stone pot here was because it was difficult to carry.

At this time, Huan Ping ran in. He looked at the two people lying on the hay, thought for a moment, and said, “Those over there said that the priest has gone out gathering. I won’t know when he will return to the tribe.”

Lang Ze looked at Xi Zhou and the others. “Go and find the priest.”

“Okay.” The person whose name was called nodded immediately and ran out without looking back.

Lang Ze frowned, not knowing whether these two people could hold on until Yang Luo came back.

Qi Bai gave Lang Ze a comforting look. “Let me take a look.”

He walked forward and placed his hands on the two men’s arms. They were icy cold to the touch. Qi Bai almost thought he was touching ice cubes.

He placed his hands on the tips of their noses again and waited for a moment. They were still breathing.

Qi Bai immediately grabbed the arm of the beastman closest to him and rubbed it repeatedly with both hands.

Then he said to the others standing there. “Just like me, use your hands to gently rub every part of their bodies. Don’t use too much force. Their skin is very fragile now. Be careful not to break the skin.”

No one had ever heard of such a method before. Some were too confused to know what to do next.

Lang Ze was the only one who didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward and pulled Qi Bai away from the young man. He took the position himself and rubbed the skin with both hands while saying, “Don’t just stand there. Come up and help.”

It was only then that everyone rushed forward and rubbed the two people’s limbs curiously.

Perhaps it was because survival in the Beast World was difficult, but everyone didn’t show too much sadness or anxiety when facing two unconscious people. Instead, they were more curious about Qi Bai’s intention behind asking them to do this.

Qi Bai looked at the two men’s shriveled stomachs and frostbitten bodies and guessed their situation. They had probably been traveling all night without any food before eventually fainting from hunger. Then they were found by the hunting team.

Fortunately, the hunting team patrolled around the territory twice a day and it didn’t snow today. Otherwise, the people would’ve fallen on the snow and been buried by the snow. They would’ve had to wait for the Beast God to rescue them.

After all, frostbite wasn’t a joke. Once the skin tissue died, it was fatal even in modern times. It might even require amputation.

When Qi Bai was young, he heard that if someone got frostbite in the snow, they could immediately rub the skin with snow.

It wasn’t until one day when he was chatting with his cousin, who was studying medicine, that he inadvertently learned that rubbing the body with snow couldn’t effectively relieve frostbite. It might even aggravate the condition if one wasn’t careful.

His cousin said solemnly to not think about any folk remedies. They must try their best to warm up the affected person’s body at this time. The most important thing was to call the emergency number in time.

However, Qi Bai was now in the Beast World and there was no emergency number for him to call. All they could do now was to restore the blood circulation of the two people as soon as possible and ensure that their body temperature returned to normal. There was no other way.

However, he didn’t have time to explain all of this to the tribe members. Qi Bai had to pretend not to notice everyone’s inquiring eyes.

Taking advantage of this time, Qi Bai quickly ran back to his cave and carried a whole basket of charcoal down the mountain.

Then he filled the stone pot with snow water and heated it over charcoal.

Ma Ling saw Qi Bai pile up several piles of charcoal in the corner of the room and light them. This made him smile. “Bao Bai, we aren’t cold. We don’t need to burn charcoal.”

Qi Bai suddenly thought of a problem. He had clearly felt a hint of warmth when entering Ma Ling’s cave, but he didn’t see any charcoal. Qi Bai couldn’t help expressing his doubts.

Ma Ling said naturally, “Lang Ze asked me to move all the valuables out of the cave. Charcoal is the wealth of our Black Mountain Tribe. I naturally have to hide it.”

Qi Bai thought about it carefully and shook his head. “They are in urgent need of warmth now. The charcoal can be taken out for the time being. Even if they live to see it, this will be useless if they don’t know how to make it.”

Still, it was commendable that everyone was on guard against these strangers.

Seeing Qi Bai going back to his cave to move things, Ma Ling scratched his head with a bit of embarrassment. “Then… what else do you need? My things are all at Ma Shun’s house next door. I’ll go move them back now.”

Qi Bai waved his hand. “It’s fine. It is just a few steps away. Just try to warm them up.”

Qi Bai returned to his cave to get some ginger.

Ginger was a good thing. No matter whether it was boiled into ginger soup and consumed or rubbed directly with ginger, it was good for frostbite.

There was also a clay pot in his cave that could boil water much faster than the big stone pot in Ma Ling’s cave.

Qi Bai couldn’t expose the pottery to outsiders, but he could boil the water in his cave and bring it down for use.

Lang Ze’s worries weren’t wrong.

The Horse Tribe was a small tribe with two or three hundred people. Any small village in modern times might have more people than them.

However, the Black Mountain Tribe had fewer people. This small tribe was enough to pose a threat to them now, so they must take precautions in advance.

A person was innocent unless they possessed a treasure.

It seemed that they had to be careful recently and try not to reveal the fact that there was a lot of pottery in the tribe before these two left.

Qi Bai threw the ginger slices into the clay pot. He thought about what Lang Ze said about them lacking salt and pinched a bit of salt, boiling it together. Then he filled a bamboo tube with hot ginger soup and brought it to Ma Ling’s cave.

After just a few steps, the ginger soup had cooled down a lot. Qi Bai felt that the temperature wouldn’t burn the two unconscious people.

He had Lang Ze hold the young man up, pry open his mouth, and pour in a bit of the ginger soup with salt.

At this time, Xiong Feng suddenly said, “This person’s hand seemed to have moved.”

Qi Bai handed the bamboo cup to Lang Ze, indicating that he could continue feeding the young man a bit more. Then he went to look at the slightly older beastman.

The man’s fingers seemed to be trembling slightly. Qi Bai touched his arm. It was still cold but at least the skin could be felt. He nodded at Xiong Feng. “You did well.”

Then he moved over some warm water from the stone pot. “Next, you can use some warm water to rub him.”

It wasn’t until it was completely dark that Yang Luo led the collection team back to the kiln.

Hearing the noise, Lu Guo lifted the straw curtain of the wooden shed and was shocked when she saw everyone’s appearance.

Every sub-beastmen who went out for gathering was in a very disheveled state. Many of them were covered in snow and mud. It looked like they had fallen down somewhere.

Their face was covered with a fur hat, but she could see the eyes that were covered with fog due to breathing.

Lu Guo quickly pulled Shu Lin and Yang Ling into the wooden shed and brushed off the snow and dirt on them. “What happened to you? Did you fall? She heard that pregnant beastmen shouldn’t fall.

Yang Ling shook his head, still looking a bit frightened.

On the other hand, a sub-beastman called Quan Nan, who had a messy braid on his head, looked excited. “We encountered a landslide. Now it should be a snow collapse. In short, the snow fell from the mountain and the priest and Tu Ya were directly buried by the snow. Fortunately, Xi Zhou and the others arrived in time or we would’ve had to dig for a long time.”

Lu Guo was horrified when she heard this. It sounded so similar to the flood that chased them. No wonder why it took them so long to return to the tribe.

Niu Xi, who was standing by, quickly covered Quan Nan’s mouth. He carefully looked outside and said, “Don’t say such things carelessly or the Beast God will hear you.”

Quan Nan immediately bit his lower lip with his sharp canine teeth. Just looking at his eyes, it was obvious he didn’t take these words to heart at all.

Yang Luo found a small stool and sat down. He really didn’t have the strength to care about what Quan Nan said.

At this moment, he took a sip of hot water. The warm current flowed down his throat to his chest. It was only then that he felt that he had saved his life.

He was really scared and frozen today. Previously when buried in the snow, he almost thought he was going to die. Fortunately, the hunting team arrived on time.

Thinking of the hunting team, he remembered the news they brought. Yang Luo asked Lu Guo, “How are those two people now?”

Lu Guo replied, “It is said that they look much better, but they still haven’t woken up.”

“Oh.” Yang Luo sighed, smoothed his messy hair, and picked up his bone bear staff.

He was holding the bear bone staff because his legs were trembling, not for the dignity of the priest.

Lu Guo saw him like this and was worried about him walking alone at night. She quickly followed him.

In Ma Ling’s cave, the two people lying on the hay had warmed up after an entire afternoon of hard work. Their breathing had become much more stable, but they were still unconscious.

Yang Luo walked around the two people for a long time but found no wounds on their bodies. He also thought that these two people had just fainted from the cold.

On the Beastman Continent, countless beastmen froze to death or were frostbitten every year. Yang Luo was naturally reluctant to give them medicine. After all, he didn’t have much of the herbs he collected in autumn after the wolf attack. What’s more, Hou Yan and Ma Shu still needed to use the herbs.

Yang Luo walked out of the cave and saw Qi Bai, Lang Ze and Hou Yan waiting outside the cave.

It had been a chaotic day. They finally had some free time now to sit down and discuss the affairs of the Horse Tribe.

Yang Luo asked Lang Ze, “Are you sure they are from the Horse Tribe?”

Lang Ze nodded and pointed at the younger beastman, saying, “The younger one is the son of their tribe leader, and the older one should be the captain of the hunting team.”

Yang Luo pondered on it for a moment before asking, “What do you think is the purpose of their visit?”

“Salt,” Lang Ze answered without hesitation.

Salt was indispensable for beastmen. Salt was probably the only thing that allowed them to venture so far in the cold winter.

Qi Bai was puzzled and asked, “But last time, they were already near our tribe. According to common sense, shouldn’t they look somewhere else? Could it be that they discovered us last time?”

Lang Ze shook his head. He didn’t think that the people of the Horse Tribe had discovered them. If that was the case, the Horse Tribe wouldn’t have taken so long to come to them, and there wouldn’t have been only two.

Lang Ze pointed to the south of the tribe. “We found traces of them in that direction last time.”

Then he pointed to the west. “This time, we found them in this direction. It doesn’t look like they are coming for us.”

Hou Yan frowned. “It seems we can only wait for them to wake up and tell us the reason in person.”

Seeing that they couldn’t come to a conclusion on the matter for the time being, the group left the two brothers, Ma Shu and Ma Ling, in the cave to watch over the two men. Then they walked towards the sheep.

For the Black Mountain Tribe, the survival of the four-eared sheep was obviously more important than the unconscious strangers. After all, this was their food reserve.

The rattan baskets brought back by Yang Luo’s group had been moved by Xi Zhou and the others to the steep wall next to the sheepfold.

At this time, Niu Yong, Xi Zhou, and the others were smashing a big stone with stone spikes and hammers. There was already a big groove inside the stone.

This was a stone trough that Qi Bai and Yang Luo decided to make after discussing it. It was specially used to clean the feed of the four-eared sheep.

The stinky grass was needed to soak the weeds and the beastmen couldn’t touch the weeds after it was washed. The safest method was to process them directly on the hillside and dry them in the sun.

Before, Qi Bai had to carry pottery jars up the hillside to wash them, which was really troublesome. He couldn’t wash too much, and it was far from enough to satisfy the sheep’s appetite.

Therefore, everyone decided to place a stone trough here. In addition, Niu Yong and Ci Yi couldn’t always hide behind a tree to guard the sheep here, so Qi Bai decided to build a straw shed for them.

It didn’t make sense for the sheep to sleep in a shed while the shepherd children had to suffer from the cold.

He added stream water to the stone trough, threw in a few stinky grass and crushed them with a wooden stick. Then he poured the collected plants into the water and stirred and soaked them with a wooden stick.

Everyone’s expressions were visibly distorted. This thing was so stinky. It wasn’t known how the four-eared sheep could tolerate the smell.

Finally, a roughly woven rattan basket with a large mesh was used to scoop up the weeds and placed on a raft to dry.

They just had to wait until this time tomorrow to pull the straw ropes on the raft, dropping the plants into the valley.

It would be considered successful if the sheep still ate the feed.

After a busy day, Qi Bai finally had dinner when the moon was high in the sky.

There was a clay pot filled with salted meat and radishes placed in the charcoal basin.

This was the late night meal he had prepared for Lang Ze. Due to the delay of the two people from the Horse Tribe and feeding the sheep, Lang Ze didn’t have time to eat dinner before it was time for the hunting team to patrol.

Just before Lang Ze left, Qi Bai had made an appointment with him to prepare some food for him.

Qi Bai hadn’t expected that before Lang Ze came back, Ma Ling ran to Qi Bai’s cave and said, “Bao Bai, the two men are awake. The priest asked me to call you over to take a look.”